Automatic bunch builder



March 9 1926. J. F. LEHMAN AUTOMATIC BUNCH BUILDER Filed April 5, 1924 Patented Mar. 9, 1926.

UNITED STATES PATENT JOHN IE. LEHMAN, or BrRMINGHAm nA MA, ASSIGNOR, BY; MESNE ASSIGNMENTS,

'ro HOLCOMBE TEXTILE EQUIPMENT co. me, or BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, A con- PQRA'IION OF'LALABAMLAL' Application filed April 5,

to a minimum the waste of thread which is the amount left on the bobbin after .it is thrown out by the feeler of the loom. Heretofore it has been necessary to leave an excessiVe amount of thread on the quill to avoid mispicks in the cloth, and since the application of feelers, and particularly sliding feelers to the looms, the practice has grown up of winding a smallcompact bunch of thread at the baseof the feeler wood on the quill before starting the main windings, thus making'it possible for the feeler to throw out the quill when all of the thread except that in the bunch was used and thus by controlling the amount of thread in the bunch it was possible to accurately control theamount of waste.

My present invention'is more particularly concerned with bunch builders for use on spinning frames in which the builder cam acts to lift the ring rail and in which it is necessaryto release the builder cam so as to drop the ring rail to the bottom of the cam in order to dotf. The Howard'& Bullock spinning frames are typical of the type of frame in question.

AUTOMATIC BUNCH BUILDER.

1924. Serial No. 704,505. I

have the mechanism extremely simple in character, readily installed and easilymodilied to differenttypes of machines and to dilferent grades of thread.

My invention contemplates the suspension of a hanger-bracket freely from thebuilder drive shaft which is equipped witha worm to drive a segmental gear journaled in the bracket, the said gear carrying on it or with it spaced trip elementswhich co-act witha trip finger on the counterweight which tends to hold the builder cam drive engaged so.

that when such weight is lifted it Will,

through standard operating connections disengage the builder cam drive and freethe bu lder cam, thereby permitting the ring rail to draw to its starting or lowest position.

My invention comprises thenovel details of construction and arrangements of parts,

which in their preferred, embodiment only are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in whichd- I Fig.1 is a perspective view of those parts of a standard spinning frame which c0- operate with my improved building mechanism.

Fig. 2 is afview from'the, rear side of. the worm Wheel showing the gear in neutral position {assumed immediately prior to doffing. 1 a

F ig; 3 is a' detail plan view of the bunch builder and the parts immediately co-related' therewith. I

Fig. at is an, enlarged detail View of a modification of the trip mechanism showing a spider for use on certain types of frameswith the, trip finger reversed to co-act therewith. Similar reference numerals refer to similar parts through the drawings.

Inasmuch as my invention involves no change; in the main parts of the spinning frame except those connected with the doifing mechanism, I have, for simplicity of illustration and avoidance of unnecessary description .of standard parts, shown in the drawingsonly those. parts which. are modithread on the quills on the frame in the man- ;We l;. r t9Qk )T bu l m is mounted on ashaft having fastthereon a worm gear 4. This worm gear 4 is driven by a worm 5 fast on the main builder drive shaft 6 which is mounted at -its outboard endin a rocker bearing 7 in the head (not shown) of the frame, in: whichhead is disposed a sprocket wheel 8 fast on the shaft the intermediatesteel-roller driving gears (not-- shown) Near its inner end, the shaft 6 turns in a bearing l o -whieh underhangs below the shaft and is provided on one side with a'pin 11 which engages in an elongated slot-12 i=n anarn111'3.- l This arm 13 carries a counterweight l l at'its free end and at its other end is fasttoa shaft '15, which is bowed atitseente'r and at its end is mounted to rock in bearings 16- attached to the base railsli', only one of which is shown. Faston this'shaft--15=is foot pedal 18 for disengaging the drive tothe worm gear 4 and freeing the-builder cit-m1.- All of the parts, as'thus' fan described, are of standard construction in Howard" & 'Bullock spinning; frames and the only change made to co-ordnnate them with my bunch builder mechanism'is-themounting of a trip finger l9=on the counterweight 14'. This trip finger is 1 preferably provided with an elongated-slot 20 through which a bolt 21"i's 'passed and screwed intoa hole tapped and threaded in the desired side of the counterweighhand a pin 22 is i'nounted to engage under the rear end of the trip to hold it positively against rockin'g' on the bolt "21* when adjusted. The trip linger overhangs from the end of the counterweight in position i to F 3 engage trip:

mechanism which will now be described.

I provldea hanger frame having overhead ayoke 28 with aligning openings in the yoke arms to receive the shaft6. I mount on the shaft 6 between'the yoke a arms a worm 24* and key it' fast on the shaft. Thea lower end of the hanger *frame has an elongated vertical s l ot andwl mount in. thisslot; a stud bolt 26 which serves as a bearing. for

the-worm gear-27. This gear has its teeth interrupted over a small arc thereof,,ap-

" proximately from 2 to- 8. 'On theflrear facevof this: gear 27: I mount a number of spaced: trip lugs-28. I show sixof these spaced. liigs arranged' so that they do not fall'wopposite the stripped portion of the 5 gear aindiI find this numben best suited for spinning-finer? numbers ofthread, though it may be varied. These lugs are all set equidistantly from the axis of the gear and are disposed to engage the trip finger 19 and raise the counterweight and with it the arm 13. This has the same effect as the. pressing of the pedal 18, in that the arm 13 will be raised, lifting with it the bearing 10 and disengaging theiworm 5 from the gear 4: which drives the builder cam and thus freeingthe cam.

"Some" frames" "have Ijcounterweights not adapted for thetripfinger to engage the trip lugs on the gear 27 and'fofr suclr'frames the modification shown in Fig. 4 is e1nployed, which involves an extension of the hub 29 ofthe gear 27 sufliciently to receive a spider wheel 30, which will work on the opposite side of-theweight Al i; from the, gear 27.. The spideris fast on the-hub and when use'd'its radial armsare the equivalent of the trip'lugs 28,.but obviously such lugs 28- are: not needed on the. gear 27 when the spider is used. :As'-stated,ythe trip finger 19 will bemounted. on theopposite side of the weight 14 in the same manner as already] described and, when in this position will project into-"the path: of and engage: thc spider arms exactly asit is shown; engaging. the gearlugs-28 in Fig.3.

In. operatiomit is necessary t o-understand. that. in; spinning frames of the type in question. thering, rail. is first lowered by; winding down.the.traverseia-s-lowqas it canzbe wound and then, when they are-ready to doff, the footpedal18 is depressed. .This rocks shaft 15', raises arm 13- andwith it bearing, 10 and disconnects-5 the worm: 5 from the; worm gear 4. Thereuponithe weightof thering rail forces the pitman: roller.. 32 against the ourvedrsurface ofjthe freebuilder cam 1' and will actto. rotate-the can-1 until the roller reaches a low-point between tips-of the cam,

which rep-resents: theiextreme. lowered. or

dotting positiontfor the; ring. rail. The raising of the-M11113 wilL-also-actto lift the weightltand with it the-tripfinger 19. By reference to Fig. 2 it will be observed. that after: winding. the bunch and until readyto doif, the gear 2'? will-stand in the neutral position shown, beingheld with its stripped portion; opposite the. worm. fill-by the opposing action of'the' weighted trip finger 19 on one" sideand fiche counterweight 31 on. the opposite side-of the gear 27. \Vhen the pedal 18 isdepressed: to doftiit' acts to lift the weight 14 and with it thertrip finger 19 sufficiently touper-mit the trip 1llg.,28f01 spider further held; by the trip19 topassthe latten- Thereupoin. the counterweight 31 will shift. the gear counter-clockwise, as showniin' Fig. 2, and will bring its teeth into position to meshethe worm 2lyandthereupon, as soon as. the frame is: started, the-operation of building the bunch wilhproceed as follows. The pitman roller. 32Q-a-tthe cominencement of the bunch building operation will, forthe reasons stated, assume position opposite one of the low points on the builder cam. As soon as the drive tothe builder cam is re-engaged, the cam, begins to depress the pitman roller, givin the ring. rail an upward movement to efi ect a traverse for laying the thread on the quills, but the gear 27 will also be turning with the gear 14. and before the pitman roller has been depressed more than is desired, having in view the stroke of the bunch, the succeeding lug 28 or spider arm, as the case may be, will engage the trip finger 19 and proceed to lift it and again disengage the drive to the builder cam. it, responsive to pressure from the p-itman roller, to drop back to starting positionwith the pitman roller at a low point on the cam and the traverse operation is'again resumed, the builder cam being disengaged each time after it has moved through the predetermined arc of travel. The extent of this are determines the stroke of the bunch and therefore the length of the bunch on thefeeler wood. This operation will continue until the gear has completed almost a complete rotation and has moved out of mesh with the worm 24, thereupon the bunch building mechanism becomes idle, releasing the builder cam from further interruption and permitting the service winding of the quills to proceed in ordinary course. As soon as the worm 24 has released the worm gear 27 the counterweight 31 will rock it counter-clockwise, as seen in Fig. 3, until the trip finger 19 engages the lug as shown, and the worm gear 27 is held in this idle or neutral position until the pedal 18 is next operated to dofi. It is to be noted that after the completion of the main service windings and the depression of the pedal 18 to dofi', the mechanism automatically sets itself so that the bunch building operation will be resumed as soon as the spinning frame is again started up, it being unnecessary to again depress the pedal 18 after the frame has been doflfed to bring the bunch building mechanism into service. This makes the operation of the mechanism completely automatic and independent of any attention on the part of the operator.

Though I have described with great particularity the details of the embodiment of the invention herein shown, it is not to be construed that I am limited thereto, as changes in arrangement and substitution of equivalents may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the invention as defined in the appended claims.

Having thus described my invention, What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. A bunch building mechanism for spin ning frames having a main builder cam, a drive therefor adapted to be interrupted to This frees the cam and causes builder cam after a predetermined partial operation of the pitman until the desired bunch has been built on the feeler wood of the quills on the ring rail.

2. A bunch building mechanism for spin rung frames having'a maln builder cam, a

drive'therefor adapted to be interrupted to free the builder cam, meansadapted to intermittently interrupt and, restore the drive to the builder cam, and means res onsive to the dofiing of the frame to set sai drive interrupting mechanism in position to start operation when the frame is started up and while in operation to build a bunch on the feeler wood of the quill.

3. A bunch building mechanism for spinning frames having a main building cam, a drive therefor adapted to be interrupted to free the builder cam, a continuously driven element, means adapted to be driven by said element to intermittently interrupt and restore the drive to the builder cam, and means responsive to the dofling of the frame to set said drive interrupting mechanism in position to start operation when the frame is started up and while in operation to build a bunch on the feeler wood of the quill.

4. A bunch building mechanism for spinning frames having a main builder cam, a drive therefor adapted to be disengaged to free the builder cam to move responsive to pressure from the pitman, a continuously driven element, means adapted to be driven by said element to intermittently disengage and restore the drive to the builder cam, and means responsive to the dofiing of the frame to set said drive interrupting mechanism to start up with the frame and build a bunch on the feeler wood of the quills, said means comprising a stop adapted to hold the interrupting means disengaged from its continually rotating drive until the quills have been filled and frame dofied. A

5. A bunch builder mechanism in accordance with claim 4, in which the interrupting mechanism comprises a segmental gear having trip elements movable therewith which co-act with said stop mechanism, the said stop mechanism being a part of the means for disengaging the drive to the builder cam.

6. A bunch builder mechanism according to claim 5, in which a dotting pedal and the :lrive-interrupting mechanism act through oumaled on the bracket and adapted to ms :said worm, ip mova l with said ea y ran' mean ,t mi fi i s i .Ld i e shaftrto interrupt themxihive to the builder cam, thedrive.shaftbeingg-dapted when mleased'by h cra k odmp ygmvfiyand resume driving relation with the builder cam, lau op 91 ai mean adap ed to gear in ymesh th itsworn -v V Intystimony wheregf I :Lflix my s ignat'ure.

- YJQHN'KF- LEHMAN- 

